It happens to the best of us. You sit down to work on your top project, but soon you find yourself thinking about how to respond to a contentious email. Or after a solid hour’s work, you step out for a quick break and get waylaid by a co-worker who “just...
As half the nation eagerly awaits the kickoff of the Super Bowl, the other half looks on in wonderment at what could be so enthralling about grown men running up and down a field carrying an oblong ball. Football fans who cannot articulate why they feel such passion...
Here’s a daily practice I learned from Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness. Once each day, write down three good things that happened in the last 24 hours. You can write them before going to bed or first thing in the morning. You...
New Year’s Day is the most active-minded holiday, because it is the one where people evaluate their lives and plan and resolve to take action.
This New Year’s, resolve to think about how to make your life better, not just once a year, but every day.
Many books offer great advice. Some are so powerful they change your mind on issues you consider settled. Very few are so clear you can learn something about thinking just by reading them. TJ Walker’s Secret to Foolproof Presentations is all three. At...
I think willpower draws on a kind of reservoir of emotional energy. Because it is so important to be able to call on willpower when I need it, I do several things to conserve that energy by reducing how often I need willpower: 1) I schedule my activity so it matches...
Here’s a daily practice I learned from Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness. Once each day, write down three good things that happened in the last 24 hours. You can write them before going to bed or first thing in the morning. You...
I’m a believer in using checklists and notes as memory aids. But sometimes you need to be able to rely on your own memory. This is particularly true for things you want to remember every time, like: Remember the car keys. Pronounce that word PREF-ur-u-buul, not...
In the 1960’s, Charles Kepner and Benjamin Tregoe translated a few key logical processes into simple, practical, teachable procedures. Since then, their methods have helped three generations of managers solve problems and make decisions at work. Their book, The...
If you have a duty to go on living, despite your better judgment, then your life does not belong to you, and you exist by permission, not by right.
I read an interesting quote the other day, on a church front, which went something like this: “Those who actually seek out ‘pleasure’ rarely find it.” This is a very appropriate slogan for an organization with a religious point of view....
Conservatives crave to inject religion into the bloodstream of American law, thereby assisting in our own national suicide. However, they cannot succeed without the Supreme Court’s consent. Sooner or later, the Court must confront the main issue, and decide whether an i…
If we are to establish an objective, fact-based morality, we need to discover a final end–one toward which all of our other goals and values are properly aimed.
Q: How should one deal with rumors (especially false ones) about oneself? Should one spend her time chasing them down and trying to explain their false nature, or ignore them? Is there some other alternative? A: The first task is psychological: treat the rumors for...
The good thing about the Michael Jackson trial is that it’s currently the top headline news. Better this than another 9/11, a school shooting or thousands of soldiers killed in Iraq at one time. The bad thing about the Michael Jackson trial is that it’s a...
Q: What can meditation do for me? A: People who meditate are generally trying to reduce stress. Reducing stress is fine. However, there’s nothing mystical about meditation that can help you. Letting your mind stop can be useful, but it also can be an indication...
What, the first question must be, is the distinguishing essence of heroism?
Q: What do you think of the old saying, “It takes one to know one”? A: It’s a package deal. By package deal I mean the lumping of a true concept with a false one. The evil of a package deal is that the truthful part of the statement motivates one to...
Q: What’s more important, being nice or being self-interested? A: It’s good to be nice. Being nice is more often in one’s self-interest than not. For example: Are you more willing to spend your money at a business who treats its customers nicely or...
After three out of six rotations in the Men’s All-around Olympic Gymnastics, American gymnast Paul Hamm was ranked first place in the standings. His next event was the vault. Hamm’s vault was to be a Tsukahara–named after Japanese gymnast Mitsuo...
When stuck with the question, “What should I do?” don’t stay stuck. Don’t fall prey to the temptation to blindly asking someone else what you should do. Instead, ask yourself — and answer — the following questions: What are my...
In recent decades, the field of psychology made a mistake. That mistake was treating self-esteem as the root of mental health. The root of mental health is actually personal responsibility. Personal responsibility refers to a core conviction that you are in the...
The basic rule to follow in a process of identification is to choose the career in which you will spend the most time doing the activity you love to do the most.
A reader writes in, taking issue with Dr. Hurd’s contention that forgiving the unforgivable (e.g. snipers, drunk driving) is neither noble nor healthy: Forgiving someone who committed a crime against you after they have served their sentence and you have had...
Ultimately, sporting events like football’s Super Bowl offer a microcosmic vision of what “real life” could, and should, be like.
Q: Why do men seem to enjoy viewing women naked (e.g., in photos, real life, etc.) much more than women seem to enjoy looking at naked men? It seems men are much more “turned on” romantically/sexually by the visual aspects of the opposite sex, than the...
At George Mason University, they are giving a “roast” — that peculiarly American combination of praise and ridicule — to Walter Williams, professor of economics and columnist extraordinaire. Although I cannot be there, let me participate vicariously with a few observa…
Marilyn Monroe on the screen was an image of pure, innocent, childlike joy in living.
Q: I know people who do more than I do yet don’t seem to get overwhelmed. I feel overwhelmed most of the time, yet I do less than these people. What’s my problem? A: It’s not how much you do; it’s how you view what you do that determines your...
Q: How can I overcome the problem of wanting everybody to like me? A: Imagine for a moment that you were liked by everyone. This would most certainly mean that you’re doing something wrong. Why? Because it would be impossible to please everyone. People, first of...
In the healthiest meaning of love and sex, both involve “compromise,” but not of the kind inherent in any moral code of sacrifice or selflessness.
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